an opinionated sports blog

August 8, 2009

Just what is Michael Crabtree thinking? He’s willing to sit out an entire season and re-enter the draft because the 49ers won’t pay him more than a tenth overall pick deserves. Does he not realize that the NFL’s rookie pay scale is weighted so that the higher the pick the more the cash? Therefore, the pick ahead of him has to make more and the pick behind him has to make less. You can’t go and demand to be paid when you have no leverage.

Crabtree is setting a dangerous reputation for himself very early in his career, that of a player only concerned about money. Starting this attitude so early will only damage his creditablity and hurt his value in the long run because when free agency time rolls around, we should be pretty certain that whoever throws the most cash his way will win out, as opposed to where he’ll fit best.

And, seriously, how high would he be taken in next year’s draft? I’m quite sure that sitting out a year would serious hurt his draft stock and he would have to hope and pray for a miracle to go in the top-10.